Off topic, the redblocks seem to be aging, and getting harder to find. I have a love affair with them, especially 940/960s... but... How are the "Ford-Vos"? I do love the way they drive, and look, and all- I'm talking about the XC70 and V 70 post 2001, but I've heard they have transmission problems up to 2006, and I've seen a few with timing belts that went WAY before they should have, ie 40k miles on a new volvo belt, and then....bent valves, warped heads, etc. One is for sale locally in excellent cosmetic shape, but the belt went and I'm not sure if I'm up to an engine swap/or doing the head and valves myself. I have the knowledge, and ability, just not the body that's not riddled with strange neurological diseases...

I could figure out a way, have a friend help, etc.

I'm not just yet ready to go post '97 with Volvos, but what's your opinion guys? Probably the wrong place but since I've been a die hard redblock owner only, I'm just not sure if I should take the plunge into the newer tech on these cars.

Then there's 850s, but again a different bird for me and what I know about Volvos has ONLY been with 240/940/960 and of course the 7 series, but I just prefer 940 non turbos.

I'd love a 760 turbo intercooler and IPD that sucker up for a mid-life crisis car/sleeper.... I can dream can't I? Still reliability for me is king.

 

I feel your pain! I too love Red Blocks, HATE all FWD Volvos! I tried a few (a lot of cars pass through my hands professionally) FWD post 1993, and no, no, many reasons why they don't cut it in my book--all together different animal. My fave was a 2005 V50 t5 with a stick and I liked the car but it's not a Volvo the way RWD Volvos are, simply put. The auto trannies are problematic, the engines are hard to maintain/work on, interiors fall apart much faster, etc. Much better to get a Passat, or a Camry, etc. These are way more reliable and drive the same just easier to live with...

You are talking about post 1997, 1998 is the last RWD Volvo, the s90 which is also not a reliable car: electronic transmission, White Block with a Porsche designed head.

If you have to get another car apart from Volvo, Mercedes are dirt cheap right now, a '90s C or E class are around $2k, and they are not so bad to keep up... I have a couple, along with a couple of Passat which I like because they are with a stick shift. With the Mercedes or any lux car, the key is to get one which has been taken care of, a neglected one will kill you with deferred maintenance costs.

 

yeah, the W124 Mercedes E class are sweet. I now have THREE of them :-O

I get out of this,


and back in this...


and it feels like a old truck.


I had a 1996 850 Turbo wagon and had a love-hate with it. hated the ride, loved the power, hated the handling. the wagon was just too cramped too, the 740 is much roomier.

this is one of our other W124's

 

My brother and sister both have XC70s and have liked them although neither of them work on their own car. Like you noted, stay away from 02-06 as they are known to have transmission issues. My dad had a 2004 XC90 and the trans failed at around 140k of mostly highway miles. My brother's first XC70 was, I think, a 2000 model and he ran that for over 225k when he sold it to a buddy that wanted it. I drove it right before he sold it and I found it to be quite a nice driving car for that mileage.

I have also gone the Mercedes route for my daily driver but my biggest complaint is the cost of parts. Not a lot of aftermarket parts available and the Mercedes prices are quite high.

 

I do love Saabs as well, but I won't even go there right now.
I've been thinking about both Mercs, and BMWs, as alternatives to the aging fleet of bricks out there.

Thing is, and Pierce I don't know if you feel my pain here, but I'm 6'5" and it's ALL upper body. I have a 32" inseam and the spine of a 7'10" man. No joke, so when I drive even in my bricks if I turn my head to look out the driver's side window I'm looking out of the rear passenger window, not the driver's!

I sit kinda like a fighter pilot in an F16 in just about any and all cars. My love affair with these cars started with the fact that their seats were/are designed with orthopedic surgeon's consult and input, Saabs seats came directly from infor from when they were still associated with their aerospace section....before GM ruined them....I am considering an '02 9-3 hatchback from them, but I had an '04 95 that was certified pre-owned, and has SO many problems-all covered under warranty thank the car gods, that I swore off of them, plus I can't drive standard anymore-long story, but safe to say that if my body was a car it would be an SUV that Yugo built in 1971.

 

the W124 300E (1986-1995, but the last couple years were called E320) is a TALL car, and the seats are even more comfortable than the volvo seats IMHO. its one of the few cars where I, 6' tall with short legs and a large head, raise the seat up several inches from its 'all the way down' position. the w124 family also has a optional power adjusted steering column (it adjusts in/out, not up/down).

I don't think the factory parts are outrageously expensive for the most part, and there is a decent aftermarket in most everything commonly replaced, for instance Lemforder and Boge sell all the rubber suspension and engine mount bits. The real Mercedes branded parts are of the highest quality, for instance a MB boxed set of fuel injectors will be perfectly matched, while the same Bosch parts in a Bosch box will have more tolerance between them. Same as Volvos, avoid Uro and other chinese parts like the plague.

They *ARE* more complex cars than Volvos, and require more maintenance. the 124's specifically have some weak spots, the transmissions have a weak reverse clutch pack, and often go out around 150k miles, requiring a $2000-3000 R&R, but the good news is, if you do that right, the rebuilt tranny lasts a lot longer than the original. the straight 6 3.0 and 3.2L engines have weak head gaskets, butr are pretty easy to fix. Mercedes ALL had biodegradable wiring harnesses from circa 1992 or 93 to 1997 or 98 (much as Volvos from 82 to 87), and any car still on the road should have an updated harness, and if its the twin cam 3.2L a new or rewired electronic throttle actuator.

The interior build quality on that generation of Mercedes is phenomenal, even the plastics are high quality, the dashboards don't crack.

 

Still, Mercedes 124/210 is a very different car from a Red Block and the costs are much higher to keep up. If you DIY, many things on a Mercedes are not doable while the Red Bolcks are quite user friendly. Now, if you run to the mechanic every time, and many here do that in spite of appearances, the labor rate between a Volvo and a Mercedes is about the same. The Red Block is hands down the easiest relatively modern car to work on which makes it desirable for cheap skates and shade tree mechanics, in spite of that fact even then they manage to screw things pretty badly according to many posts on the forums.

Saabs? I have a '99 9-3 in the family, and even though it has its nice qualities it is a nightmare to even find someone in the trades who doesn't hate them! Parts are unobtanium and cost a lot if available--other than that, a nice quirky car!

Get a Camry, there is a reason why it's the best seller that it is; if I wasn't in the biz and had to have one reliable car, that's what I'd have.

 

I find many things /easier/ to do on the Mercedes 300E than the Volvo 240/740/940 family. Everything is designed for disassembly, reassembly, there's extensive service documentation, see Mercedes Benz Model 124 - M104 Maintenance Manuals for example. The procedures can be fairly involved but everything comes apart and goes together nicely. When you take interior pieces apart, you don't find nearly as many broken plastic bits in your wake requiring cobbling it back together.

We have a Camry. Noone in the family wants it, most boring appliance-car we've ever owned, I have more emotion over our washing machine. The seats are god awful uncomfortable after about 30 minutes. the car is numbing to drive.. And, Toyota factory parts are for the most part scary expensive, even more than Mercedes.

 

Try pricing out an exhaust for an E320. The MB price for it runs over $1k and its hard to find and aftermarket versions. Try to find a replacement water pump. MB price for it is around $450. Aftermarkets are cheaper but still closer to $200

 

I hate Toyotas. Their seats are like small torture chambers for my spine. Think crushed discs, tumors, etc. Built for lilliputians not giants like me.

I made the great mistake of test driving a 2012 Acura TSX Wagon. THAT thing...oh boy. I'd sell a kidney for one of those, and I'd need to. They've had that model in the line up since '02 apparently and I've yet to see one on our local Craigslist ever for sale.

For the time being, I'll keep looking for more redblocks. There's a '90 760 wagon on Long Island for about 2k with 75k o.g. miles on it. That's kinda cherry looking and turn key.

I'm currently struggling with my '94 940 Regina.... I'd love to find another '94-'95 940 in great shape but here in the North East, unless it's been garaged, it's got salt and rust issues, the sheet metal on the redblocks has done far better than most brands of cars in that environment, but still, the relays, vacuum hoses etc. no matter how well they've been maintained are all starting to go it seems, no matter the mileage.

What to do...

I heard Shaquille O'Neil drives BMWs,....but I'm sure he's got some crazy modified car. My spine is longer than his, that's not a joke. If I had the legs to match my spine I'd be 7'11", hence why every girlfriend I've ever had has nicknamed me "Bear", especially if they see me run on the beach. Maybe it's the back hair, I don't know... Since my bizarre neurological weight loss, the current "next wife" as I like to call her has named me "Were-bear", fitting I guess but I still need something I can cram my stubby legged, long as spine body into. Seems the Swedes hold the current solution but I'd give ze Germans a shot at keeping me comfortable behind the wheel. Safe too.

 

Eberspacher mufflers, both of them, for our 300E, plus all clamps, donuts and hangers, were like $500 total from FCP Euro. these are high grade stainless mufflers, same as OEM

the water pump for the M103 or M104 motors is crazy expensive, I agree, its a big complicated pump assembly. good thing is, it lasts a long time.

 

Drenman, you think you have problems body shape wise?
Pierce is biassed, as he shared in a recent post...

 

Interesting post. One thing missing so far is safety - air bags, stability control, etc.
I have a 1991 240 sedan, manual trans., with 130,000 miles. It has a driver's airbag, and that's it for safety, other than the tank like body. Also have had a 1997 BMW 528i sedan for the past 15 years, which now has 203,000 miles. It has dual front airbags, front side airbags, and stability control that you can turn on/off. As you would expect, the BMW has far outstripped the Volvo in frequency and expense of repair. Suspension parts, cooling system parts and gaskets/seals all fail with above average frequency on the BMW and are expensive. My wife and I are retired, and I have little ability or inclination to do my own work on these cars. With the BMW having such high mileage and the lack of modern safety features on the 240, we are assessing what to do with our aging fleet.

We also used to have a 1998 4Runner that we bought brand new. Four years ago we were out in it after a winter thaw early in the morning, hit some black ice, and careened down a hill and nose first into a tree. Airbags deployed, and we walked away pretty much uninjured except for my wife's left knee, which recovered in about a month. However, i have to tell you that in the few seconds before hitting the tree, what went racing through my head was "Please don't rollover, please don't rollover!" Luckily, it did not roll. By the way, it was totaled.

So, despite all the advantages that the Mercedes and Volvos of the 80's and 90's appear to have compared to the later ones, to me it is safety features that will guide our choice of our next vehicle purchase. For that it seems to me that we have to get into looking at cars of the 21st century, despite all the good reasons pointed out in this thread to staying in the ones built in the late 20th century.

 

For sure, newer cars are safer...
SUV which are top heavy and taller roll over much more than vehicles with a lower center of gravity.
Volvo are not built "like a tank", they just feel that way! So tired of hearing the tank comparison--they are actually surprisingly light. They are well designed to crumple in crashes and that's what makes them safe.

 

Totally. I'm 6'5" and I had a 32" inseam. My Dad was 5'8" and we wore the same size pants, so all that extra height is made up in my torso. I used to work in a tattoo shop and my nickname was Toroso Man. It's all upper body. I lost 115lbs to demyelinating disease process and I'm much more recovered but I'm nowhere near what I was when I was young and healthy.

It used to take me about 20-30 mins to do the brakes on each wheel, now it's a 3-4 hour process as I rig up things to help me put leverage on bolts, etc.

Ergo my search for both comfortable cars and mostly DEPENDABLE cars. I'm on fixed income, so.... it's not easy. I have 8 crushed discs, three shattered vertebrae, a scar tissue tumor called a syrinx that runs the length of my spine in the center of the cord. And that's the reader's digest version. Seats are SO Important and I can't even ride in 240s anymore because of their propensity to "lean back" on the console side only....

So...my search continues.

 

Well, Lev, even though you dislike the tank comparison, it's out there and we all will be hearing it again and again. Even the Volvo sales people play up how Volvo continues to use a special metal alloy that gives the body parts of new Volvos extra strength, as the salesman at my local Volvo dealer did last fall when I test drove a new XC60.

I agree that SUV's are top heavy, which is why I did not replace the 4Runner after the accident, especially after reading several rollover test results that showed how the roofs of several popular SUV brands were completely crushed after rollovers.

 

My 04' Saab 95 saved my life. Twice. My '95 960 also saved my life. Twice. Both were totalled on the 2nd impacts, but the 960...and this is where volvo designers took their stupid pills, had the airbag under the f'n HORN...so when it went off with my HAND on top of it trying to warn the other driver not to accelerate through a stop sign and into me...it exploded and shattered the thumb/wrist of my right hand. So, while I have a non matching set of oppositional thumbs, I'll take my life over my gimped up writing hand. That and the ensuing law suit.

 

Saab ads used to say that the best way way to survive an accident is not to get into one!

Bag under the horn? If I am not mistaken the Volvo horn buttons are on the side of the bag unlike most other cars whose horn activation is indeed under the airbag?

 

Yeah, I had **** luck commuting on the I95 corridor about 50 miles north of NYC everyday. One guy actually drove perpendicular across four lanes of highway, then TWO more lanes of offramp, one for the north bound lane of the highway, and the exit ramp for the facility I used to work as a social worker at. T boned me, then I got rear ended stopped for a school bus by a guy doing 75 mph in a 35...and he was a lawyer. He got arrested at the scene for reckless driving. The other's were just as bad, me not at fault, but the horn was on a 960, I have pictures if you haven't eaten lunch yet. Looked like someone burnt my hand on a propane grill....my thumb plumps when you cook it just like a hotdog. Seriously the x ray tech at the hospital gave me the courtesy of being in medecine and told me ahead of time how jacked up it was, I still remember her saying the bones were, "really bad man, like really bad...they look all crinkly..."

 

i noticed my wife driving the other day with her wrists flipped around so she was holding the steering wheel from the inside, I pointed out that if she was to get hit and set off the airbag, her wrists would be shattered. you shoudln't even hook your thumb around the wheel with an airbag, keep your hands below 3 and 9 o'clock rather than 2 and 10 like traditionally taught, keep your thumb on top of the wheel rather than hooked around the inside.